Social & External
Zé Analfabeto
In the Makarenko public elementary school in the Paris outskirts, children want to learn and to be cheered while teachers know they do not only teach, they also educate. With care, tenacity and efforts, children are trained to become not only responsible citizens but also human beings.
In 1996 I took the conservatory exam. I missed it. A year ago I was asked to do a masterclass on acting in cinema. I went there. I met a lively, joyful and passionate youth. Among my students there was Clémence. The following year, she asked me to film their last show. I felt her urgency and the fear she had of leaving this mythical place. So I accepted. By filming this youth, I revisited mine.
Upon his arrival in Paris, filmmaker Tomas Cali immerses himself in learning French, as well as the language of sketching. In an art studio, he meets transgender life model Linda Demorrir, who helps him to connect with himself and his new city in a profoundly different way.
A heartwarming story about a precautious, 8-year-old girl exploring the world with her globetrotting father and growing up in an unconventional family.
In his crusade for literacy, principal Ray Brown enlisted the help of the community and broke through the cycle of illiteracy in a small Newfoundland fishing village. He turned the struggling elementary school into a place where students were eager to learn and instilled in parents a sense of hope for their children's future.
The Truth About Reading looks at the illiteracy problem in America, highlighting people who learned to read as adults, and sharing proposed solutions for working towards a future where every child learns to read proficiently.
Grecia from Venezuela, Linda from Vietnam and Andriy from Ukraine are pupils of META, an inclusive school that supports the integration of young migrants into Czech society. Their families were brought to the Czech Republic by different circumstances and each of them has different ideas about their own future. While eighteen-year-old Andriy, an ambitious boxer, wants to become independent as soon as possible, and Grecia, an artistically gifted student, would like to get into an art high school, Linda is still not sure what she wants to do with her education and career. The time-lapse documentary engagingly captures an important stage in the lives of young people for whom not only the language barrier, but also the long-term lockdown due to the coronavirus epidemic is an obstacle.
Jay Blades, presenter of The Repair Shop, has decided it’s finally time to learn to read. He has been told he has the reading age of an 11-year-old. Throughout his life he has found ways of avoiding the written word, and this film digs deep into how this has shaped him.
Aim High is a recipient of the San Francisco Community Leadership Awards "for closing the achievement gap through programs that inspire a love of learning and a strong sense of community. Through its innovative, free summer school program, it supports the educational and developmental needs of middle-school-aged children, providing the tools for learning, a commitment to their community, and the hope for their future." - San Francisco Foundation
EDC designs, implements, and evaluates programs to improve education, health, and economic opportunity worldwide. Collaborating with both public and private partners, we strive for a world where all people are empowered to live healthy, productive lives.
Freely adapted from Flaubert's unfinished book 'Bouvard et Pécuchet' (published posthumously in 1881), 'How to Excel at Everything' explores the dynamics operating in our current era of online self-study and YouTube tutorials. Guided by algorithmic recommendations, B and P try to learn everything without any pedagogical compass, falling into a new rabbit hole everyday. Exploring the thin interstice between online DIY culture and the dismantling of institutional pedagogical structures, 'How to Excel at Everything' translates the gamification of our lives and the rise of self-help culture into a learning odyssey.
Jane Taylor, a librarian, has lost her job. Depressed and suicidal, she decides to take a final wonderful trip to Costa Rica before swallowing a bottle of pills. Once there, she meets a younger man, Juan, a vibrant tour guide who takes her on an unexpected journey filled with adventure and romance.
60-year-old seamstress Cida needs to sign a document at her workplace, but can't read what it says. With the help of her granddaughter's teacher, she becomes interested in literacy and, at the same time, starts questioning things that happen at her job.
Reporter Goro Maki stumbles upon scientists conducting weather experiments on Sollgel Island in the South Seas. He discovers the island is inhabited by giant mantis and a woman named Saeko who's been cast away since the death of her father. The pair soon find a helpless infant monster that Godzilla must adopt and learn to raise as one of his own.
When his sister disappears after leaving their home in hopes of singing stardom, Luis tracks her down and discovers the grim reality of her whereabouts.
During WWII, Germans obtain the immortal heart of Frankenstein's monster and transport it to Japan to prevent it being seized by the Allies. Kept in a Hiroshima laboratory, it is seeming lost when the United States destroys the city with the atomic bomb. Years later a wild boy is discovered wandering the streets of the city alone, born of the immortal heart.
Kim Marsden inherits a cattle station near Alice Springs after the death of her father. Kim becomes convinced her father was murdered. She sends for a legendary local bushman called the Sundowner, who was one of her father's best friends.
A vicious serial sex killer is on the loose, and landscape gardener and shop-window outfitter Loris is the prime suspect, thanks to his unfortunate habit of getting caught in compromising situations (for which there is always a totally innocent explanation that the police fail to spot). Undercover policewoman Jessica is assigned by eccentric police psychologist Taccone to follow Loris.
Before being extradited to Africa to stand trial, a notorious Belgian criminal is entrusted to the Marseilles police department for less than 24 hours. But the wily crook convinces bumbling policeman Emilien he's a lowly Belgian embassy employee who got railroaded by the brilliant master criminal.
Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.
The rise of Aretha Franklin’s career from a child singing in her father’s church’s choir to her international superstardom.
A dark story about obsession, cats, and birthday presents.
A tale of terror. Cathy Reed has been institutionalized most of her life because of Schizophrenia, as a child her parents thought she was possessed by demons and had her exercised by priests. Medical science saw different. Now decades later Cathy is freed, relocated to her own flat and given a chance to be independent. Once alone things are not what they all seem and when her nightmares turn real she questions her state of mind before she is left to face her demons.
A cabdriver and a cop race to Paris to rescue a love interest and the Japanese minister of defense from kidnappers.
Trying to escape his bath, Monicão ends up hiding in the movie theater. Mônica can't find her pet in the dark, so she asks Franjinha to play some short films that might lure the dog out of hiding.
About a notorious Connecticut convicted rapist.
The story centres on three brothers and their violent father who live in a remote forest. The brothers attempt to kill their father while on a hunting expedition but this instead begins a deadly game of cat-and-mouse.
Static images of an old country house are combined with voices of the past to evocative effect. Haunting and nostalgic, 'Return' conveys the life that exists in old, abandoned places.
A young couple purchase their new home to start a life together, only to find out the elderly couple next door have other plans for them.
Short film from the Philippines
Mobile Suit SD Gundam Mk. II delivers with more tongue-in-cheek humor than the first series. In "The Rolling Colony Affair," a colony is hosting a cabaret show featuring the girls of Gundam. But the show turns disastrous when men and mobile suits go crazy over the girls, sending the colony rolling out of control. A parody of the videogame RPG genre, "Gundam Legend" has Amuro, Kamille and Judau sent on a perilous quest to rescue the princess of the Zeta Kingdom from Char Aznable and his vicious Zeon MS forces.
Marc, a bipolar and paranoid filmmaker, cannot tolerate seeing his current project picked apart by his producers. The clips he’s been able to sneak a look at lead him to fear the worst. With his editor as an accomplice, he manages to spirit away the rushes to his aunt’s place in the Cévennes, to finish the film as he envisions it. Instead, its completion is constantly postponed, as he creates endless diversions and impasses, which alternate between the comic and the downright disturbing.
Damiel is now married to Marion, runs the pizzeria “Da Angelo” and the two have a child. The solitarily remaining angel Cassiel is more and more dissatisfied with his destiny as a mere observer of human life and finally decides to take the great leap. Taking the role of Karl Engel, he soon gets into a dubious milieu and finds himself as the assistant of the German-American Baker, who makes his money with shady arms deals and sends films east in exchange for weapons. Cassiel’s adventure turns into a “thriller” when he decides to put a stop to Baker’s game.
